The voice of lived experience: mobile video narratives in the courtroom

ABSTRACT

Video is overtaking other modes of communication in new media. Whether from a smartphone, a wearable device or surveillance camera, video is being made, stored and shared in unprecedented ways. Once the exclusive territory of institutions becomes large enough to finance video production and its storytelling power, technology’s contemporary democratization is changing the landscape of visual narrative. This project explores the discursive nature of video based on a case study of a courtroom trial that was both about the legality of filming crime scenes and the evidentiary use of videos from crime scenes. This unique intersection of surveillance, counter-surveillance, word and image, body and text allows for deeper understanding of how video serves human purposes. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and textual analysis, we build upon Walter Fisher’s narrative paradigm by identifying significant attributes of unedited, evidentiary video that distinguish it from other forms of visual documentation. Raw video’s hard-edged timeline presents narrative coherence in a way that resists discursive contextualization. This has important implications for public policy and citizen-generated video evidence.

KEYWORDS:

• Social media
• mobile technology
• law
• social movements
• video

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Mary Angela Bock (Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania) is a former TV journalist. She joined the faculty at the University of Texas at Austin in 2012. Her most recent project (with co-authors Shahira Fahmy and Wayne Wanta) is Visual communication theory and research: A mass communication perspective (Palgrave, 2014). Bock is also the author of Video journalism: Beyond the one man band, and co-edited The content analysis reader with Klaus Krippendorff. [email: [email protected]]

David Alan Schneider is a lecturer in the department of Radio, Television and Film at The University of Texas at Austin. He has more than 20 years experience in television production. He earned his master’s degree in Media Studies and Production from Temple University with a film project titled Give Us our Toasters and our TVs: Network and Media Self-Criticism. [email: [email protected]]